


Mission GL-0928-0: Dr. Simmons and Agent Grey

by RRGrokesyn



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Action, Espionage, F/F, F/M, Humor, Multiple Personalities, Science
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-15
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2018-02-13 05:01:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2137950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RRGrokesyn/pseuds/RRGrokesyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first conversation went like ‘Simmons, what the fuck are you doing here? You’re supposed to be resting, on the Bus’. She ignored me. Seriously, it was like she didn’t even hear it… and then she went like ‘Agent Skye, right?’, and I was like, ‘yea, but’s not like you don’t know that since, well, forever…’. She didn’t even bother smiling properly, she just lifted one corner of her lips briefly and extended her hand (this is the best part, wait for it…): ‘Agent Grey, nice to meet you’.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mission HG-BP-0929-2: Russian embassy infiltration

**Author's Note:**

> Like most stories I start, this one is also an experiment. Yes, yet another story… my brain is furious of how many hours of not-sleep I’m having because I get carried away writing.
> 
> Anyway, I have this rule that I don’t revise chapters before the story is finished, because I believe a finished, brute story is better than an unfinished, polished one. Of course, there’s a promised land of finished and polished, but that would take forever to update, and leave both of us unhappy, so I’m taking the safe route. Again.  
> This doesn’t mean I don’t want criticism – please criticise all you want, it’s amazing how much insight you guys get me when you criticise –, it means I won’t be addressing criticism for past stuff before I finish it. That said, let’s move on to story specifics.
> 
> I can sort of feel people that read Switch frowning upon me now – “you’re so unoriginal! Switch has this in its chapter title and summary”. Yes and yes. However, as it is typical with my new stories, there’s only a superficial level of planning involved (for reasons stated above), so more often than not, the original idea is something and the story itself goes off track faster than I can say ‘bloody hell’. Switch is one of those cases. Which makes the summary, and chapter one’s title, completely inaccurate to the current plot (I have to fix that). And probably makes this a Switch-spin off (but not really, it’s complicated).
> 
> No further delays, then!

Agent Skye reporting from Budapest.

You’re probably wondering about her – yes, she’s here with me, for… some reason. Look, I kind of don’t know what happened, or most importantly, how it happened. What I know is that I was in my hotel room, studying the floor plan, and she appeared out of the blue (this is sounding like a bad porn…). Anyway, word of warning, AC: you might want to keep that between us, because the porn sounding part is not nearly the worst one. Trust me on this.

The first conversation went like ‘Simmons, what the fuck are you doing here? You’re supposed to be resting, on the Bus’. She ignored me. Seriously, it was like she didn’t even hear it… and then she went like ‘Agent Skye, right?’, and I was like, ‘yea, but’s not like you don’t know that since, well, forever…’. She didn’t even bother smiling properly, she just lifted one corner of her lips briefly and extended her hand (this is the best part, wait for it…): ‘Agent Grey, nice to meet you’.

I really think that lab explosion’s loosen a few screws in her head, AC. I mean, she seems pretty convinced that she’s ‘Agent Grey’ and that would be a very elaborate prank for Simmons – she’s too good to pull it off, and frankly, she doesn’t have the lying skills. I’d tell in a second. I was confused for a minute or two, then decided to play along (I have to admit that I have a soft spot for girls that role play) – ‘nice to meet you, Agent Grey’.

‘Have you finished reviewing the floor plans? I wanted to skim them before we go’, she sat down besides me and started frowning at the computer screen. Meanwhile, I was busy frowning at her, for thinking that she would be tagging along.

* * *

2013/09/28, 1900 hours, Budapest.

“Just finished reviewing the floor plans, thank you”, Agent Grey says from her sitting place on the bed. Skye keeps frowning lightly at her, “are you going to scowl at me all night? It’s going to look very suspicious”, she adds, a bit too emotionless. When Skye doesn’t change her expression, Grey lightly purse her lips and glances at her watch, “we have to get ready, have you checked the equipment?”

“What equipment?”, she earns an eye roll.

“Are you a real agent, or did you just parachute into S.H.I.E.L.D. last week and they had no other choice?”, it’s hard to picture someone that looks just like Jemma Simmons saying those harsh words. That’s why Skye’s merely staring at her – mouth open –, instead of grabbing her by the collar and demanding some respect. Skye’s formulating an answer, but it all goes out the window when the girl casually unbuttons her shirt, and takes it off – totally no big deal.

This can’t be Simmons.

“We have exactly seventeen minutes until we leave, so you better hurry, otherwise this will transform into an international affair, which is exactly what we’re trying to avoid”, Agent Grey clearly notices Skye’s eyes all over her figure, but she doesn’t react to it, she just proceeds with removing her pencil skirt and her business woman shoes. When she noticed Skye’s still in the same position, staring flabbergasted at her, she pulls the corner of her lip in exasperation, “I’m not stripping for you to watch, you know?”, this snaps Skye out of her shock, and she reaches for her own dress on the chair.

“Good”, Grey finally says when they’re both dressed, “We have seven minutes for the equipment review. Do you have your icer with you?”, she says as if she’s running through a much seasoned mental checklist.

“No, why would I want a gun?”

“If things go south, you will need one – here, I have a spare”, and she tosses it to Skye.

“Utility knife?”

“Err… no”, Grey raises her eyebrows, but lowered them as soon as she remembered the rookie she was dealing with. She got her own knife and gave it to Skye.

“A comm?”, she continues her checklist.

“I was doing this mission alone, as far as I was concerned until twenty minutes ago!”, her protests didn’t provoke much of a reaction – in fact, it provoked no reaction at all. A completely catatonic Jemma Simmons.

“This is not an excuse, you always need a comm, unless you’re going in a suicide mission. What equipment do you actually have?”, Skye can hear the frustration in her voice, but she’s certain the girl didn’t try to hide.

“A pocket tablet capable at hacking everything”, Grey looks unimpressed. In fact, Skye’s sure she didn’t even blink.

“Be sure to hide it well, then. We still have four minutes, so let’s go over the plan”

* * *

Apparently not only she was tagging along, she had an entire plan in her mind, perfectly scripted. It started out with transportation, surprisingly. She was watching time closely because she knew there was a chauffeur picking up Nina Arany, a fairly new invite to the embassy’s circle, and her sister, Izabella Herczog, which was conveniently adopted. She also ‘took care’ – she used those words exactly – of the pair before, so it was a matter of getting to the Arany residence before 2000 hours.

When she mentioned what part of town that was, I thought it to be impossible – it was literally on the other side. Then I hopped in the loaner BMW (is S.H.I.E.L.D. always this generous with mission resources?), spent twenty minutes scared for my dear life, and unbelievably, we made it without dying horribly. I’m still impressed at this. Or maybe I did die and I’m stuck in a nightmare. That’d make much more sense.

She parked on an alley, from which there was no direct access to the Arany manor (though we could see it from there) – ten minutes to the arrival of the chauffer. ‘There’s no way in hell we’re going to reach it in time’, I breathed out and she merely gave me an amused, almost cocky look – I was mildly irritated in this point.

Never hated Simmons so fucking much – you can’t blame me, right, AC? Bitchy Simmons kind of sucks. Not that you know that, but I guess you’ll find out.

But she’s crafty, I give her that: she produced grappling gun, pulled me by the waist without even asking for permission (I like bold girls and all, that take their clothes off and grab me all dominant, but a dinner first would be nice, you know?). We were in the roof in no time, and she motioned for me to follow her, grappling gun easy in her right hand, kneeled in the shadows. It was like watching Simmons as the next Bond girl – super weirdly hot. 

We finally grapple our way into the house. She lights a dim lantern, smooths her dress and mine, grabs my wrist (still no dinner – this alter ego girls…) and makes her way to the front door, just in time to prevent the old dude from knock. I have to admit: Simmons 2.0, Agent Grey, or whatever her fucking real name is, rocks at this. 

I was all like ‘not bad’.

Then she starts speaking bloody Russian to the driver. AC, what the fuck! Simmons’ super smart, I get it, but did you how she knew Russian? For me, she was a native English and proficient science speaker, and nothing else. And why Russian, for goodness’ sake! It’s not like she goes there a lot!

* * *

2013/09/28, 2020 hours, Budapest.

“Since when do you speak fucking Hungarian?”, Skye whispers in the pathway to the Embassy.

“It’s Russian, and stop speaking to me”, right, the plan was for Skye to smile, wave and go upstairs as soon as she had the chance.

Grey walks up to the ambassador, and thanks him for the invitation to the reception. She compliments the Russian embassy’s driver who, according to her, ‘was impeccable in his timing and training’. It makes the ambassador visibly proud. She smiles sweetly and asks trivial questions, yet personal enough to form a circle of attentive listeners to his stories. Skye’s bored out of her mind, but she takes the cues and laughs at the right places. So far no one seems suspicious.

In the middle of a particularly funny story – at least she presumes it is, Grey is laughing enthusiastically (though never losing her elegance), along with everyone else –, she pretends to whisper something in Grey’s ear, heads to the toilet, takes the wrong turn and goes upstairs.

She finds an empty room and hacks into the embassy’s CCTV. Super easy. She flips through the multiple rooms of the building, trying to find the documents’ office. And here it is, with two guards at the door, pointing their AK-47s down. Fuck.

Skye’s distracted when she hears the static in her ear, and Grey’s surprisingly lighthearted voice, with an even more surprising broken, Russian accented English: “Mr. Rosenov, I would love to accept your invitation to go to Sofia. I heard wonders about Sofia”, she talks slowly, and it sounds like a bad Bond movie from the seventies – from Hungary, with love, “I’m sad to have to go to Croatia with my sister before”, Croatia! Right! Skye begins typing in her tablet as fast as she can think. Then she hears the door – oh no, that wasn’t part of the plan. She whispers ‘help’ into her comm and turn to face the man.

It’s a guard. An armed one.

He walks towards her and says something in Russian. She puts her tablet face down and stands up, coy smile on her face. She gets near and the guy is suspicious, but when she addresses the first button of his uniform, he catches on and smirks, hoarsely saying something else in Russian. So her plan is working, but how she can prevent him to either fire his gun or raise the alarm is unclear. Or how she can keep it up without feeling nauseous – nothing against men in general, but this one’s nasty. She caresses his chest, trying her best to keep her flirtatious smile, looks at him.

What she doesn’t expect is for him to boldly pull her into a terrible, sloppy kiss. Disgusted is a completely understatement, now. Suddenly the man stops, and falls slowly – she notices Agent Grey’s behind him, holding his unconscious body. She places him under the sofa while Skye is comically wiping her mouth – priorities.

“Who knew you had a thing for hairy, overweight Russian guards. I certainly wouldn’t guess”, Grey raises her eyebrows in a flawless deadpan.

“Ha, funny!”, Skye replies annoyed, but she’s got to admit that she’s perplexed at the girl’s sudden humour.

“What’s the situation in the documents’ room?”

“Two armed guards with assault rifles”,

“Have you disabled the alarm?”

“Yes”

“Good, guide me in”, she rushes out of the door, icer gun in hand, and closes it softly behind her.

“There are two guards patrolling the corridor you’re about to go into, coming from your right”, Skye informs, and watches the girl press herself against the right wall, “oh, no, they’ll turn into the corridor you are”, she watches Grey toss a smoke bomb, shoot both guards perfectly in the head, and avoid the lasers from the next corridor, “that was cool”, Skye finds herself saying, she hears Grey release a light chuckle in her way to the door

“It’s locked. Are you sure the alarm is disabled?”, she gets her lockpicking tools from an other inner thigh pouch and puts them in the lock.

“Very sure. Stay still, though!”, Grey freezes in position and waits for further orders, “the electronic lock is clearly not disabled, and I recognise this pattern – it’s an extra alarm just for this door, in case someone tries to naively lockpick it without disabling the software lock first. It triggers if you remove the key without opening the door too”, Skye frowns into the screen, “That’s smart. Hang on, I’ll try to overcome this”, Grey breathes sharply, not liking the fact that she had to have a hand on her lockpicking kit to make it pressure the lock like a real key. She looks at the empty corridor – they have approximately five minutes to get in.

“Gotcha!”, the girl turns the key and the door clicks open. Four minutes.

“Skye, help me get these bodies in the documents’ room”, the girl rushed out to meet Grey, and she dragged the first guard’s body while Grey put him in the room – three minutes. The last guard almost got stuck in the carpet – damn it – but they push him in and close the door with one minute left to the next round of guards notice the two bodies. Phew.

* * *

The mission itself went well, I disabled the alarm, Agent Grey and I got in the documents’ room unspotted and we erased the files. Impressively enough, we went back to the party after it, and I swear it was like the stealthiest thing ever. She engaged into a good conversation with the Polish ambassador – luckily for me, it was in English this time –, we spent more than half an hour with foreign relations affairs people and no one suspected that were three guards passed out on the second floor and plenty of documents missing. Finally, Grey arranged for the Russian embassy driver to take us to ‘our house’ (so we could grapple our way to the car) – talk about undercover. 

This time I insisted on driving to the hotel. No more mach three experiences for me, thank you very much.

Overall, this was a great mission. The only mistake I’ve made, I’d say I recovered quite well (a bit thanks to Agent Grey – okay, a lot thanks to her). I was kind of pissed at her, but I have to say she was very handy – she and her perfect Russian (still can’t get over this fact).

Update: ugh, just when I started to like her, ‘you know that’s a mission report, not your journal, right?’. Agent Skye asking permission to hit superior officer. Hard.

And signing off.

Coulson drops the sheets of paper on the table and scowls at May, “this is the craziest report I’ve ever read”

“Skye’s really bad at bookkeeping”, she says matter of factly, and shrugs it off. He’s about to contest, but he receives another report, neatly written, and much shorter. May frowns, “what’s that, the report’s post scriptum?”

He holds the new piece of paper on his hands and reads it out loud:

Mission report for the Russian embassy infiltration, code HG-BP-0929-2  
Agent Elizabeth Grey, from Budapest, 2013/09/28

I am pleased to inform tonight’s mission went successful, with no civilian casualties and only one incident, relating to a Russian patrol officer and a slight mistake in the plan’s execution. I would also like to request further training for Agent Skye, should she need to go back on field. In particular, I am convinced that planning training, as well as CQC, would benefit her the most.

Agent Grey signing off.

May’s frowning even harder: “who’s Elizabeth Grey?”, Coulson stares blankly ahead.

“I have no idea, but I’m guessing we’ll find out soon enough”

* * *

2013/09/28, 2200 hours, Budapest.

“Should’ve kicked in on the groin, then hit the back of the neck. It’s almost certainly lights out. It was good improv, anyway”, Grey says randomly.

“Thanks”, Skye sorts of smile, a bit confused. She’s still mildly irritated from the journal line. She looks at the girl, now dressed ready for bed, and closing her laptop. She still can’t believe it isn’t Jemma. She sighs. Then she notices she moved to the opposite side of the bed.

“You’re sharing the bed with me?”, Skye looks at her, a tad of incredulity.

“Do you have a problem with it?”

“I do if you aren’t a cuddler”, Skye deadpans and faces her computer, but she still catches a glimpse of the girl’s almost smile, and that leaves her a bit too pleased with herself.

She then notices she has one new email: ‘Mission assignment - GL-0928-0: Dr. Simmons and Agent Grey’. Nice title, AC.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First attempt at action-ish! Big yay for that moment!
> 
> Things I liked:  
> 1\. Scene cuts! Oh, yeah, I can imagine a goofy action movie (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., anyone?)  
> 2\. Romance-dry: don't get me wrong, I'm super romantic, but I already have two pure romance/porn, plotless ones, so it's refreshing to write something that doesn't touch this directly.  
> 3\. Coulson and May! Their scene is very brief, but I liked to throw them in :)
> 
> Things I disliked:  
> 1\. Writing "S.H.I.E.L.D." - so bloody annoying. Seriously, try it - in the fifth time, you want those bloody dots to go screw themselves.  
> 2\. I liked the action to a point - I don't think it's genius, or even that fluid, but you got to start somewhere :)  
> 3\. Same goes to Skye's report - in some points I was like "yeah, this is so easy and awesome", at others I felt the phrases lamely forming and I was like "meh, this is so skippable".
> 
> So, what do you guys think? Agree, disagree? Didn't understand the plot? Didn't care? I'd like to hear, as bad as it may should :)


	2. Debriefing: the best looking not-couple in all S.H.I.E.L.D.

2013/09/30, 0700 hours, Budapest.

Skye feels the heat on her back, and an arm loosely wrapped around her waist – turns out Grey is a cuddler, who knew! The thought amuses her. She turns gently to refrain from waking the girl, and watches her sleep for a bit – she has a tranquil smile on her features, the kind you’d expect from Jemma Simmons in the mornings. One that carries a pure, sincere aura, and possibly can calm anyone, even in this Hydra mess. Just looking at it throws all thoughts of recent events to the back of her mind.

She realises she’s staring after a couple of moments and diverts her eyes, a bit embarrassed. She looks to the sun rising through the window instead. The unforgiving rays make her squint her eyes, and she raises her hand to shield from them.

Then she hears a yelp.

“I couldn’t believe you’re actually a cuddler either, but I’m not complaining”, Skye smirks, and faces the girl, who’s moved as far as the bed let her. There is a mix of terror and lack of understanding that Skye wasn’t expecting, “Grey, c’mon, it’s not that big of a deal – I won’t tell if you won’t tell”, and she throws a wink for emphasis.

“Skye, what are you talking about? Who’s Grey? I’m supposed to be in the Bus! Oh, Fitz must be worried sick!”, and it clicks: that’s not Grey, that’s Jemma Simmons.

“That’s going to be super hard to explain, then”, Skye purses her lips and looks to the side, sighing in the process – almost a non verbal form of her statement, her expression.

Jemma’s clearly nervous, she’s got widened eyes, she’s rather conscious of her lack of clothing (thus the death grip on her poor blanket), and she’s shifty. Plus, it’s quite clear she can’t believe she’s sharing a bed with Skye (much less cuddling with her), but that seems to be a minor detail, since she should be at the bus recovering from her third degree burns in the first place.

“So, yeah, how do I start?”, Skye scratches her chin playfully, “you appeared here, told me your name was Agent Grey. Then you went on the mission with me: you spoke perfect Russian, impersonated someone else flawlessly, knocked down a couple of guards with headshots, we avoided an international crisis… and you gave me CQC advice. I think that sums it up. Oh, no, no! You also drove like a Bond girl, which was a terrifying experience”

By the time Skye’s done, it isn’t humanly possible to scowl further than Jemma’s currently doing. She shakes her head, trying to make sense of it all. “What?”, she finally asks dumbly.

“I know, right! Apparently your other personality’s super cool”, Skye finds the girl’s confusion amusing, especially because it mirrored her own confusion last night.

“I don’t have other personalities!”, Jemma shrieks. 

“Evil twin, then?”, Skye tries to lighten up the mood, but it doesn’t work, “Hey, listen, chill, okay? You kind of saved the day, there, with your superspy skills”, Jemma stares at the wall, with an expression that’s perfectly in between ‘I’m about to cry’ and ‘I can’t bloody get any of this’.

“What more did I do?”

“I think you flirted with the Bulgarian ambassador, who seems to think you were a charmer, he even invited you to go to Sofia. Don’t know after that, you kind of disappeared for half an hour or so”, Jemma’s utter shock face evokes a chuckle in Skye, “Kidding! Ha, boy, that was a good one… ouch! Right, sorry!”, she recoils her arm and massages the part Jemma just hit.

They’re interrupted by Coulson’s call on the comm.

* * *

2013/09/30, 0830 hours, somewhere in the Hungarian air space.

“Take a seat, you two”, Coulson motions at the chairs.

Jemma’s stomach sinks. She feels like she’s in the principal room, ready to be punished for skipping class. Which she thinks isn’t far from the truth, except for the skipping class part – more like skipping recovery, which is even dumber.

“Yesterday I received two mission reports, interestingly, considering this was Skye’s solo mission”, he puts his hands together with only the fingers touching, and rest them on the table, looking from Jemma’s anxious expression to Skye’s laid back smile. He grabs a page from his drawer – Grey’s mission report – and reads it out loud. He finishes with “I can’t say I’m not surprised”

“We’re all surprised, AC”, Skye cuts in, “Simmons here almost had a heart attack when I told her what I knew this morning”, she lifts the corner of her lip and eyes Simmons, who looks like she wants to sink into the chair.

“And I’m assuming you wrote it all on yesterday’s report”

“Yes”, she throws in an emphatic nod.

“Simmons, do you know something else besides what Skye told you?”

“I have no recollection of what happened, much less how it did, or why”, she seems genuinely embarrassed to admit, straying her gaze down to her lap. In that moment, to further her self-consciousness, May joins them in the room, standing by the door.

“Can’t you investigate this on the lab, somehow?”, Simmons makes her ‘I’m thinking super quickly’ face. She scowls at the floor for a couple of moments, then presses her eyebrows together, a bad sign, from what Skye knows of her.

“If I can’t witness or monitor myself in this alternate state, it’s very hard to run relevant tests. I need a partner to conduct this. It can’t be Fitz, since he isn’t suitable for this biology intensive work”, she seems apologetic to be the biologist and the infected person.

“Until we figure out what’s happening, the events of last night can’t leave this room, am I understood? We don’t know what we’re dealing with, and after recent events, I want to take no risks”, he receives affirmative nods from both girls – a more clenched one from Skye, who predictably disagrees, but chose to stay silent, “now please leave us”, they both wait until the girls have closed the door.

“A 0-8-4 and now a split personality disorder? I hope there’s still a place in S.H.I.E.L.D. most diverse team contest, we’d win hands down this year”, May takes a seat across from Coulson, who chuckles at the deadpan.

“Did you read Skye’s report?”, he places both elbows on the table and leans on it.

“Grey’s right, it sounds like a journal”, she sits back in her chair.

“Didn’t you find Grey’s sequence of actions and abilities rather… familiar?”, he squints one of his eyes more than the other.

“I knew you’d say that. But I can’t see a reason for her to be involved”

“But we have nothing on it! Simmons doesn’t remember, and can’t investigate, and Skye only knows what she described in the report. I’d say it’s our best shot”, he states emphatically, “Maybe she can point us in the right direction. Or she may even know something about it”, he offers as afterthoughts.

“Coulson, all of Hydra is also tracking her. This won’t be easy”,

“It’s good that I have a plan, then”, he gives the knowing smile he’s famous for and May merely sighs, stands up, and opens the door for both of them.

* * *

2013/09/30, 0900 hours, somewhere in the Romanian air space.

“We’ve been tracing increased Hydra activity in the past few days. Very worrisome, since they acquired gravitonium not that long ago, and we haven’t heard from them in a while”, Coulson begins to the rest of the team in the briefing room, “The spikes come from two major areas – Kathmandu, Nepal; and Bangkok, Thailand”, he points to what looks like a heat chart and Skye wonders how he got that information – is Hydra becoming that sloppy that even non existent-S.H.I.E.L.D. can graph their communications? Somehow, she doubts it, but she keeps the thought to herself. “We need to obtain more information on both of these fronts, as quickly as we can. So we’re splitting the team – May, you’re responsible for the Bangkok operation, take Trip and Fitz along; Skye, Simmons and I are going to Kathmandu”

“Agent Coulson, sir, Simmons cannot take a mission with those burns”, Fitz speaks up.

“If she’s healthy enough to sneak out and follow Skye to Budapest – to do God-knows-what –, I have to disagree”, he smiles in that particular way which reassures people he’s right. Skye glances at Simmons, who couldn’t be redder, and is shielding herself from Fitz’s gaze, “teams, assemble for briefing, we leave tomorrow at dawn”

May leads her team out, with Fitz glancing back every half a second. Once they’re out of earshot, Simmons scowls at Coulson, and Skye speaks up, “no offence, AC – and Simmons –, but did you really have to imply me and Simmons are having… something?”

“It’s ‘Simmons and I’, although I agree with your point”, Skye rolls her eyes, while Coulson smiles at both girls.

“Well, it seemed like the most believable explanation for your little escapade, since you two are always hugging each other”, Skye puts on her confusion face and Simmons lets out an exasperated sigh, “Now shall we get to the mission?”, Coulson ignores the two reactions and pulls a map of Kathmandu on screen.

* * *

2013/09/30, 1230 hours, somewhere in Iranian airspace.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me”, after three hours of briefing, that’s absolutely not what Simmons wanted to hear, “you’re my best friend, Simmons, we tell each other everything. Why didn’t you tell me you were dating Skye?”, she puts her book down to find her best friend staring at her, betrayal and seriousness mixed on his face.

“Fitz… “, she starts and is interrupted by Skye coming through the door, sitting besides her, and kissing her cheek. She feels said cheek burning, but Skye doesn’t seem to notice.

“It’s my fault she didn’t tell you, I asked her not to tell anyone”, Skye swings an arm over Simmons, “hope you’re not mad”, Skye swears Simmons is holding her breath, and frozen in place, but she doesn’t give it much of a thought. She just concentrates on convincing Fitz that there are a couple.

“Surprised would be a more appropriate word”, Fitz says, while frowning at the pair, clearly noticing the rather comical vibe they’re letting on – Skye’s draped over Simmons, who looks utterly uncomfortable with the situation.

“Ah, surprised is not that bad”, Skye waves it off, giving him a cheeky grin. She throws a glance and a smirk at Simmons, who gives him the worst forced smile in history. Skye holds back a her frustration at Simmons’ negative ability to pretend, and kisses her cheek again.

Is that a blush?

“I suppose”, he’s still in clear disbelief. Skye finds it amusing, but Simmons looks self-conscious, and is trying to avoid Skye’s gaze as much as possible. If she could, she’d unwrap herself from Skye too, but that would compromise everything. 

“So, how are the preparations for the Bangkok mission?”, the change of subject surprises the pair, since they can’t stop focusing on the elephant in the room.

“They’re fine, I guess”, he shrugs, and tries to hold Simmons’ gaze. In turn, she’s trying to smile, but seems to have forgotten the proper way to do it. Skye watches the interaction and can’t help thinking how she misses Agent Grey right now.

“Thrilled to go on a mission with May? I bet you’re dying to handle her multitude of expressions”, this makes Fitz smile – there’s some hope for this conversation, she celebrates internally!

“Not really. I don’t think I’m her favourite person”, he wrinkles his nose and scratches his neck.

“I don’t think May has a favourite person”, Skye looks up, as if she was stating a very obvious fact, and she compliments it with a nose wrinkling smile of her own.

May’s throat clearing comes from the doorframe, and Skye gets this adorable ‘I stole from the cookie jar’ face, making Simmons forget about the arm around her and muffle a laugh, “Agent Fitz, the briefing’s restarting”, Fitz jumps from the bed and follows her. The door closes, but Simmons’s still holding back a laugh from Skye’s embarrassment.

“That was awkward”, Skye finally says, and she joins in Simmons’ quiet laughs. She’s still got her arm around Simmons, and she kind of pulls her into her shoulder while laughing. That triggers something is Simmons’ head, because she’s back to stiff in less than a second, “oh, sorry, I didn’t realise I still had…”, Skye mumbles at Simmons’ obvious discomfort, “I mean, we had to convince him and all, so yeah”

“Do you think it worked?”, Simmons has this down to business tone that suggests to Skye she’s hiding something.

“Thanks to your flawless acting”, Skye grins at Simmons to explicitate the sarcasm, in case her tone isn’t enough.

“You’re hilarious, Skye”, Simmons shakes her head, trying to smile and keep her annoyance to herself. Skye doesn’t miss it though: something about the arrangement is bothering Simmons, and she can’t put her finger on it.

* * *

2013/09/30, 2100 hours, province of Bihar, India – approx. 100km north of Patna.

The day was rather exhausting, in Simmons’ opinion. Somewhere in between finding out she had a second personality, being recruited for an ops mission and faking a fling with Skye to the rest of the team, she found herself at wit’s end. She’s desperate to be alone and have no excitement whatsoever until their departure to Kathmandu, so she’s rather gleeful when Coulson finally announces the end of their mission’s preparations, and sends them off to bed.

She takes a long, hot shower, puts on her warm pajamas, her glasses and cuddles with her latest biology read. The perfection of it all makes her smile.

There’s a knock on the door. Oh, no.

Whoever it is knocks again. Simmons feels her dread and takes a deep breath before asking the person to come in.

“Hey”, Skye looks at her from across the dark room – the only source of light being Simmons’ reading lamp. She’s in nightwear as well (albeit much more revealing nightwear), and has her laptop and some papers tucked under her arm. The girl comes in and sits cross-legged on the floor, rather near the bed where Simmons is wrapped under the covers.

She hands the papers to Simmons, “this is my report from yesterday’s mission. Just stole it from Coulson’s office”, Simmons’ eyes widen, and Skye’s certain her thoughts involve the words ‘bad girl shenanigans’. “Thought you might want to take a look at them yourself, you know, because you seem pretty uncomfortable about the double personality thingy – not that I blame you, I’d freak out too”

She waits for Simmons to finish her read in silence, not noticing how she’s actually staring at Simmons. To her, she’s merely taking in the black-rimmed glasses, which she never knew the girl wore; being amazed by the speed her eyes darted from side to side on the page; and observing how the source of light hits the girl’s face, highlighting the burns along her jawline. See? Totally not a big deal.

Simmons, however, is super aware of it.

“Is there something wrong?”, Simmons finally asks, not looking at Skye and feeling her cheeks hot again. She pretends she’s still reading, but she can’t really take in a word.

“Nothing – I just didn’t know you wore glasses”, Skye again notices the faint rosier colour that arises on the girl’s features. Maybe she’s embarrassed of faking a fling and doesn’t really know how to behave, especially after all the kissing on the cheek during lunch break.

Thinking now, maybe all that was a little bit exaggerated.

“Strictly for reading”, Simmons replies dryly and tries to focus on the damn paragraph she’s stuck on for the last minutes. “Wow”, she needn’t really say it, because the ‘wow’ is written all over her face. “This is unbelievable”

“Tell me about it! When you started speaking Russian I almost blew the entire mission with my surprise”, Skye flashes a lazy smile. “And you were like ‘just shut up and smile’. It was this weird role reversal – I kind of felt bad for you afterwards, with all the times I told you the same”, Skye’s eyes are straying and, when they finally meet Simmons’, they look apologetic. It made Simmons smile warmly.

“And why were you so thankful to Agent Grey?”, Simmons flashed genuine curiosity.

“Ugh, I don’t want to talk about it…”, she cringes dramatically. Simmons squints her eyes, raises her eyebrows, and raises the corner of her lip. Looks like Simmons isn’t giving up anytime soon. “All right, all right. I kind of made out with this gross security guard because he almost caught me disabling the alarm in my tablet”, Simmons starts laughing, with her eyes forcefully closed and adds a ‘ew’. Seeing her so relaxed after this overwhelming day makes Skye overlook the awfulness of the memory and join in, “your alter ego even made a joke about it – and that’s saying something, she’s not much of a joker”, and she continues the story, filling Simmons in with the details.

“Are you okay with all the pretending we’re doing?”, she asks out of the blue, finally finding the moment appropriate – and mustering the courage – for it. Simmons’ discomfort comes back in a smaller dose.

“It’s not like we have a choice. Director Coulson’s right, there seems to be no other plausible reason for me to go down to Budapest to meet you. Helping you in an ops mission is an even worse excuse”, she answers quietly.

“But I mean, I could tone down all the PDAs – I really wanted to convince Fitz, but I think it sort of backfired, and made you uncomfortable, didn’t it?”, she tilts her head and makes another apologetic face – a quite adorable one. Skye observes attentively Simmons’ reaction to the question, because she gets the feeling she won’t get anything from the girl otherwise. She’s certain she sees a shadow of doubt there, but she waits patiently for the answer.

“It’s fine, Skye, I was just… taken aback”, she states very calmly, in an almost controlled manner.

“Let’s face it – it’s kind of cool we get to play the best looking not-couple in all S.H.I.E.L.D. Think about it for a moment…”, Simmons smiles broadly at the cocky comment. Classic Skye.

“Be right back”, and she leaves. When she’s back, she’s got her pillow and blanket in hand, and Simmons gets this desperate ‘that’s not what I meant!’ expression from the sight, “What?”

“You’re… sleeping here?”, Simmons grows super nervous, so she speaks slowly, as if that would convince Skye that it was a bad idea.

“Yeah!”, she frowns at the obvious question, “C’mon, you went all the way down to fucking Budapest, recovering from burns, to sleep with me – allegedly. Why wouldn’t you now that we were outed by Coulson?”, Simmons’ mouth gaps and she’s frozen in place – that’s very, very far from what she meant. However – and unfortunately –, she definitely doesn’t have a good excuse to get herself out of this one, so she might as well play along, very hesitantly. She lets out a sigh.

“You’re right, I guess”, she says weakly. Skye then starts making her bed on the floor.

Oh, that’s what she meant. Of course.

But now Simmons is beyond torn: her proper side is telling her that she shouldn’t let Skye sleep on the floor. Her sane side, however, says that it’s for the best. She closes her eyes and concentrates on her breathing.

“I’m not allowing you to sleep on the floor”, she hears herself saying, and immediately regrets it.

“It’s fine, I know you find this all very awkward, so let’s not make it more”, Skye pats her pillow and lays on her side, facing the girl on the bed. She tries to hide her pain, but when she adjusts, her hip bone grinds against the floor and she makes a face.

“No, no, you’ll get yourself injured, which is the last thing you need before a big mission”, Simmons says, then makes space in the bed by moving backwards and pulling the blanket.

“All right, Doctor Simmons”, Skye brings her pillow along and lays besides the girl. She kind of wants to make a joke about playing doctor in their pretend fling, but the look on Simmons’ face warns against it – she seems nervous as hell. But why?

Skye takes a brief moment to think back through the day, and gets recurring evidence that Simmons seemed to avoid, albeit politely, contact with her; and dreaded it, when it needed to happen. A rather disconcerting, and sad, thought.

Skye turns her back to Simmons, trying to ignore Simmons and her recent conclusion. When she finds out she can’t, she says: “It’s cool, Simmons. I assure you I only bite on request. Now have a good night”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually feel bad that this chapter is solely debriefing and character development. Especially after the huge delay it involved - which was well spent on planning, I assure you all. However, I felt that skipping through the team's reactions, and the build-up, was super wrong. I mean, we had to have the Skimmons 'morning after', right? And we couldn't ignore Fitz being super worried with Jemma.
> 
> Which brings me to the one conscious decision I took in this chapter: FitzSimmons is brother/sister relationship, and I gave them two breaths for the season finale and that's it – I felt it would darken the story significantly to make Fitz jealous of Jemma's sudden relationship with Skye, and I'd have to deal with the brain damage part, which takes months to recover and... meh, too many subplots, too dark, too serious.
> 
> I'm not that serious. I like complex plots, not drama, so big no there.
> 
> Thanks for all the kudos and the comments - it's super awesome to have such great feedback! I sincerely hope I can provide you all with 'Mission NP-KM-1001-0: Spider Tracking' in less than ten days (as was the case this time :/)
> 
> Last but not least, this chapter is a (very late) birthday gift :) cheers, people, see you next time, in Kathmandu!


	3. Mission NP-KM-1001-0: Spider Tracking

Agent Skye reporting from the worst inn in Kathmandu, 2013/10/01

Well, what can I possibly say about this mission? We came to find Hydra, and we did. We found a bunch of them, with freakin’ Russian assault rifles and shooting at will. Fuckin’ A.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves…

The first super hard part of this mission was convincing Coulson that bringing Lola to an undercover mission was a bad idea. Should go without saying, I know, but you know how AC’s – ops, my bad, it’s DC now, isn’t it? – attached to the damn thing. So there was this super useless discussion about it before the crack of dawn. Luckily for me, May did some ninja wordless convincing (and I thought hate fu was her only secret…) and something clicked in DC’s head. Meanwhile, Jemma was standing there almost lifelessly. I don’t think she got much sleep last night, she still has huge blacks under her eyes, and she didn’t crack a full smile all day.

Oh, and important detail: I know for a fact that she’s still Simmons, because after the Lola discussion I had to call her. First called her Simmons, she didn’t answer, then Grey, nothing. Then I realised she was asleep, tapped her shoulder and she looked at me terrified. I’m pretty sure if it were Grey, she’d have given me a low kick, then immobilised me. All right, that’s not a good enough reason, I know, but it’d be cool – maybe a bit painful too. The real reason is that I called her Simmons and she responded fine, which I know for a fact Grey wouldn’t.

Can’t say I wasn’t disappointed: Grey would be terribly useful against Hydra.

We landed on the field fifty miles from Kathmandu and managed to get ourselves a car and drive to the city. I have to say: Kathmandu’s super cool, and there’s a tons of temples in the middle of the city. And there’s a very scenic view of all the tall mountains, which is pretty awesome. I remember commenting that and being scoffed at by Simmons, who – in true Simmons fashion – briefly lectured me on said mountains.

* * *

2013/10/01, 0630 hours, fifty miles from Kathmandu.

“I can’t believe you never heard of the Himalayas!”, Simmons sounds incredulous and defeated, like she doesn’t have enough energy to start a lecture nor to transmit how she found the fact absurd. Which is precisely the case, since she found herself struggling to sleep last night – she kept waking up, thinking, then falling asleep again for another short period of time. Too many things in her head: Agent Grey, lying to Fitz… but who are we kidding?

The problem was mostly Skye.

Feeling the heat of Skye’s back against hers was unnerving. Skye’s words and all the touching were playing repeatedly, and she wondered if the girl had any clue of the effect it was having on her. Simmons hoped not, Skye didn’t seem so… sadistic.

But then again, what an inconvenient situation, having a crush on the girl you’re pretending to date! Simmons could only blame her luck.

Her luck, which went by the name of Coulson.

“I was too busy trying to hack some banks, back in the day. A girl’s gotta make a living”, Skye grins at her from the passenger seat.

“Skye, it’s a basic geography fact. The Himalayas are the mountain range which contain the tallest and most dangerous mountains in the world”, Simmons tries to put emphasis on the sentence, but she loses enthusiasm mid way, so the rest of it sounds very monotone.

“Good for it, I guess”, Skye’s grin widen, and Simmons decides it’s not worth it. She lays back and shuts her eyes for a second, “what? That’s it? You’re not fighting me over it?”, Skye frowns and gaps her mouth at her. Simmons opens only one eye to watch the girl’s expression.

“I’m really not”, she flashes a lazy smile and shuts the eye again.

“Are you two sure you didn’t get married in Budapest? Because judging by the bickering one can imagine…”, Coulson trails off on purpose, sounding like he has his ‘I know better’ smirk. Simmons’ smile falters and Skye’s words from the night before sting a little. She hates to make Skye think she despises the contact, but after her sleepless night of rummaging over it, it seems like the better alternative – as opposed to letting her know she’s avoiding getting too familiar, and hopeful, with said contact.

Skye herself isn’t pleased about Coulson’s comment, as she drops the subject and finally stays quiet for more than five minutes. Way to dampen the mood, Director.

“Do we have a plan?”, Skye finally asks.

“No”, he replies nicely, and smiles at her.

“Seriously?”, Skye’s in complete shock, and Simmons would be too, if she wasn’t fast asleep.

“We have some pointers on latest Hydra communication, but nothing more than that”, Coulson replies, then gets frustrated with the gearbox for the thousandth time, “why didn’t I bring Lola? She’s so much better to drive…”

“AC, what the hell! What if it is a trap? We have three people…”, Skye glances at Simmons, who’s got some drool on the corner of her mouth, “two people, a zombie and no plan. Are we really going to have a ‘watch out , Hydra, here we come’, part two?”, Skye states in absolute disbelief.

“We turned out fine last time”, he tries to dismiss her concerns with his ‘you know I know better’ smile. Skye isn’t buying it, “let’s establish a base first, then we’ll talk about it.”

* * *

Really: worst. Mission. Ever.

I had, and I still have, a feeling that Coulson’s hiding the real purpose of this mission, for some reason. I mean, he’s a veteran agent, he’s freakin’ Director now. He, of all people, must know that going to the field without a plan, or even an objective, is pointless.

And very stupid – even I know that and I’m like, level half.

We arrived at our “base” – a cheap looking flat – at eight something, and I asked Coulson again about a plan. He replied noncommittally about our next move. Simmons, who wasn’t awake before, seemed confused and asked about it too. He replied ‘information gathering missions are more about the improv’, and Simmons lost all colour of her face (even she knows we’re doomed if we depend on her improvs), except the blacks below her eyes, which seemed deeper, somehow. I briefly wondered if she was turning into a zombie as a side effect of the split personality thing.

I might have – very insensibly, in retrospect – cracked a joke about it. Not my finest moment. She gave me a glare that made entirely obvious whose brain she would eat first. Coulson smiled. Because he always does, annoying so. His smile disappeared quickly and he yelled ‘take cover’. Not long after that, there were gunshots and I saw bullet holes on the crappy excuse for a wall.

See? Very. Fucking. Stupid.

* * *

2013/10/01, 0820 hours, mission operations base, Kathmandu.

When the first bullet made its way to the closet’s door, Coulson dives to the floor, and crawls quickly to the bathroom to take cover. Skye dashes to Simmons, crouches and embraces her tightly. Skye can feel the girl trembling in her arms, so she hugs her closer. The bullets cease for an instant, and the agents try to figure out what’s the next move. Steps outside give it away. Coulson gets his pistol in hand, throws the spare to Skye.

Skye lets go of Simmons, looks her in the eye and whispers, “Hide, quick!”

“No, I won’t let you two…”, Simmons starts protesting.

“Simmons, go hide, we don’t have time for this”, Skye says, holding both of the girl’s upper arms, “I promise to give you firearms training if we survive this”, the look of disappointment is clear in Simmons’ face, but she doesn’t say more before she rushes to Coulson’s previous position in the bathroom. Coulson joins Skye behind the bed, waiting for the moment the door will come down.

All of them stay silent, listening only to the cracking of the wooden floor and the soft steps of their attacker. Skye pays attention to her breath, a handy trick May taught her to control her nerves in tense situations much like this one.

Inhale.

Exhale.

The assailant’s still out there, his steps are getting closer. Skye throws a look to Coulson, who’s as concentrated as her and paying intent attention to the door. The guy stops.

“He’s at the door”, Skye whispers to Coulson almost inaudibly.

“He’s smarter than that, he’s trying to access our positions”, Coulson replies in the same fashion. The anxious silence continues for a minute.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Skye’s sure she can hear her heartbeat in her eardrums. She grabs the grip tighter and looks at Coulson again. He’s steady as a statue, only his gaze shifts around the room, probably trying to assess the enemy’s next move. She should do the same, but the waiting is unnerving – the guy’s clearly winning the mind game with her. Coulson shoots his head upwards. He looks at Skye terrified and opens his mouth to issue the warning.

Too late. The ceiling comes crashing down, barely giving both ops to dodge the debris. Three Hydra agents shoot from the newly formed hole. Coulson manages to shoot one in the arm, and he drops his gun near Skye. She reaches for it, and targets the two remaining ones, with little success. The most she gets is a bullet that grazes one of the agents’ shoulder.

Gunless man drops through the hole and, at the same time, two more agents break down the door and start shooting their assault rifles. Gunless uses the distraction to break Coulson’s leg with a step kick and gets his gun. Coulson roars in pain and Skye’s furious. She ceases shooting at the assault rifles pair and irrationally jumps on Gunless – who’s not gunless anymore –, who doesn’t budge, despite the wounded arm.

“Skye!”, she throws her extra gun to Coulson without looking and punches Gunless in the jaw with her free hand, while using him for cover from the other agents.

Coulson restarts the bullet exchange with the assault rifle duo, bringing one down with a couple of shots in the chest. The other yells something in anger and opens fire at the bed, trying to dig through Coulson’s cover. Just a matter of time, and bullets.

Skye’s steady in place, pistol aimed at Gunless’ head.

“Go on, kid, take your shot”, he grins menacingly. She loads the gun, fuming. His smile broadens and it’s getting on Skye’s nerves. She pulls the trigger.

Click.

No bullets. Of course, Gunless counted it. She watches in horror as he raises his own gun to her head, slowly. Coulson looks at her terrified, but her position puts him at a stalemate: if Gunless drops dead, the three other guys would finish her in seconds.

“Please don’t kill her”, he pleads to Gunless, “Please. I surrender, just don’t kill her”, he uncocks his gun and throws it at Gunless’ feet.

“That’s it? Can’t say I’m not disappointed”, he keeps his focus on Skye, “I’m sorry, Director”, he says with emphasis, “but I can’t keep your pet agent alive. We’re under orders”, he pushes the hammer of the gun back.

Simmons runs from the bathroom, somersaults to grab Coulson’s gun and kicks the gun from Gunless’ hand in the process. She lands and fires a headshot on assault rifle man, then rolls sideways to avoid fire. Skye recovers the gun and points it at Gunless, immobilising him. Simmons throws her own gun to Coulson, who gets a clear killshot at one of the ceiling agents and grabs the assault rifle to finish the other, “I’m sorry, but you tried to kill my team”, she sighs as the body falls near Skye and Gunless.

* * *

With that, I was confused: it’s sorta okay for Grey to be kicking arses, but Simmons? It doesn’t make much sense – actually, scratch that: it doesn’t make any sense. However, we both held our questions to after interrogating Gunless. Predictably, the guy was a pawn and had a cyanide pill in mouth, which he bit with a maniac smile before telling Simmons ‘Ward doesn’t miss twice’. He dropped to his knees, smiling further. I was pissed – I threw a punch at him that made him spit some blood. Ward won’t get a second chance at killing my friends.

Coulson was still on the floor, but urged us we had to go as quickly as possible. We could have figured that part out, DC. I carried him out, while Simmons held onto my gun. We got to the street and she took out the Hydra guards on the streets in super assassin fashion.

‘Where did you learn that?’ I had to freaking ask, after she upped her body count to five with five shots only. She smiled adorably, while reloading the pistol, and said she didn’t know. She never fired a gun in a mission – actually, besides the… situation at the Hub, she never fired a gun, period. All of a sudden, she shoots better than everyone.

Life’s really unfair. Especially because she proved she’s still an outstanding doctor right after her sharp shooting. She examined Coulson and concluded his lower leg bones were broken near the knee. She said needed to perform the immobilisation and, if possible, she needed a couple of chemicals to accelerate the healing process. She then concluded it was better to terminate the mission and get Coulson back to the Bus.

Coulson protested in between moans – not an option, he said. He said that we had to carry on, to fulfill our mission, even though we had no clear objective – just kidding, I added that last part. My turn to protest: I asked why were we really there. He pursed his lips and eyed Simmons. Oh, so Coulson has an idea to figure out Simmons’ case, now that makes a lot more sense than hunting Hydra! Simmons was oblivious to the eye motion, so he lied we had to extract some more information about gravitonium related plans. In turn, I wonder why Simmons can’t know.

I decided our best bet was to get to a hospital as quickly as possible. She argued that hospitals don’t let random people operate in them, but when I mentioned about the chemicals and materials, she agreed the best place to get them from was a hospital, indeed. I drove while Simmons did her medicine mumbo jumbo – she even conjured a painkiller that made Coulson sleep in no time.

The drive was rather quiet, with her trying to assess more of what she could do and mumbling to herself sometimes. I was still wondering about the extend of Simmons’ abilities from Grey. I mean, she could shoot and do acrobatics just like Grey, so maybe she could do everything else?

I quickly found out I was wrong.

* * *

2013/10/01, 0910 hours, Kathmandu Model Hospital, Kathmandu

“So here’s the plan, Simmons: I’ll infiltrate, get some lab coats, a stretcher and we pretend we’re going to perform…”, Skye trails off as she notices Simmons growing pale, “What?”

“Skye, I can’t do this”, Simmons’ eyes are wide and she’s visibly nervous.

“Of course you can! You just killed five men with perfect killshots!”, Skye gesticulates for emphasis.

“What that has to do with infiltrating a hospital?”, Simmons eyes Skye as if she went a bit crazy.

“Both are Grey’s skills”, Skye says, “If you can pull of the super assassin stuff, maybe you can also do super spy”, Skye’s argument is convincing, but Simmons is still skeptical.

“I don’t know, Skye, I don’t think I have much control over it”, Simmons admits, lowering her head. “I still don’t know how I did all of it. I remember getting this insane headache right after I heard Coulson’s scream. It was terrible, I could barely think. The next thing I know, that guy says he’s going to kill you. I don’t know what came over me. I scanned the room, spotted the gun and in the next moment I was rushing towards it, and somersaulting to reach it. Even though I can’t somersault, or use a gun. Things just flowed”, Simmons scowls, possibly trying to understand the biology behind it. She seems preoccupied, like she couldn’t believe those skills couldn’t come lower than an impossibly high price. 

“Sounds kind of cool”, Skye tries to lighten up the mood.

“It was… very weird”, Simmons looks at her serious, “The thoughts, they just came out of nowhere and acting upon them was so easy. I came out of the building, looked at the three guys’ positions and a seemingly best shooting order came up in my head. I just raised the gun and every shot I took, I knew precisely where it would hit”, Simmons’ eyes sparkle, and Skye can only guess she’s marvelling at the beauty of something scientific.

“Maybe other skills work similarly”, Skye offers.

“Like lying”, Simmons says like she’s a bit more convinced.

“Yes!”

“I don’t know, Skye, I don’t even remember what happened in Budapest… maybe the process doesn’t work this way”, Simmons says, but Skye knows it’s the last barrier of resistance.

“One way to find out”, Skye gets out of the car and into the building. She quickly misleads the receptionist and gets into the hospital, observing the staff’s movements to find out how to get what she needs. A service closet – bingo. She gets in and fetches a lab coat for herself, and ties her hair up according to the hospital internal policy, which is conveniently written on the wall. She gets another lab coat and hides it under her own.

Right, so now a stretcher… where can she find one? She scans the environment. A doctor comes running to her, yelling in a language she can only guess to be Nepali – no Grey to save her from this one. Damn. Skye shakes her head vigorously to the doctor and points forward. She seemingly understands, but is clearly suspicious as she frowns in Skye’s direction and goes talk to another nurse.

This is bad – it means it’s just a matter of time until she’s found. She sees a guy with an empty stretcher, so she follows him discreetly. Luckily, he leads her exactly where she wants: the storeroom with the folded wheelchairs and stretchers. She waits for the guy to leave and tries to unfold one. Ugh, this is hard. A nurse goes in and eyes Skye’s attempts to unfold the stretcher. When she notices, she forces a smile. He says something in Nepali and unfolds it for her, ranting about it as he leaves the room. She gets the service elevator to the parking lot’s service entrance.

“Help me put him here”, Skye rushes to the car where Simmons is tapping her foot impatiently.

“Where were you?”, Simmons frowns.

“This place’s a maze. Now here’s your lab coat”, she watches Simmons get into the very familiar outfit.

They rush with Coulson’s unconscious body into the building. Once in, they split: Simmons tries to figure out where they keep the immobilisation supplies and Skye goes off to find an empty room they can use. When rummaging through a closet, Simmons is approached by a doctor, who says something calmly.

“I… I… I’m sorry, I don’t speak Nepali”, she smiles sheepishly.

“Who are you? I never seen you around”, the man squints his eyes. Simmons is betting not a lot of the hospital’s staff don’t speak the native language.

“Oh, me, I’m… err… I’m new, Dr. Jones, I just transferred from… India”, she shutters, losing total control of her expressions and completely giving away the lie. She stands up and offers him her hand a tad too eagerly.

“I see, I never heard of any new transfers from India”, the man says, shaking her hand with reluctance.

“It’s an unusual trend”, she says too quickly and smiles too broadly, “and who are you, if I may ask?”, Simmons tries to sound threatening. Keyword: tries.

“Dr. Shroff”, he responds dryly, “Dr. Jones, I’m afraid you’ll have to come with me”

“I really can’t, I have a patient with a broken leg”, she avoids the man’s gaze.

“It’s not a request, miss”, he flashes his director badge. Right, great luck.

“Doctor? Your patient has an internal bleeding, he requires immediate attention”, Skye cuts in, then sees the director standing there, “I’m sorry sir, I didn’t see you there, I hope I’m not interrupting”, Skye fakes the urgency rather well.

“Unfortunately Dr. Jones has to come with me first”, Skye looks at Simmons, who throws her a desperate look, as if the director couldn’t see it. He catches on, “you come too”, Skye closes the door behind her before the guy could reach for the handle. Then takes out her gun. The director turns pale.

“No screaming, and no fuss, please. We only need to treat one guy and we’re out of your hospital. Comply and nobody gets hurt, deal?”, the director nods weakly, “So here’s how this is going to work…”

* * *

I didn’t feel exactly good threatening an innocent doctor, but given that Simmons had completely screwed up our chance of pacific interaction and we really needed Coulson’s medications. We can consider that half a success. We got what we wanted, but I already came across a couple of news sites with an early reporting of threats to the hospital director’s life, so we can say things didn’t go as smoothly…

Now we’re temporarily at this horrible “hotel” in the outskirts of the city. Coulson and Simmons are both fast asleep and I’m supposed to keep watch, which I’m doing, albeit not exclusively. I figured I could start writing the damn report sooner than later, so here I am. Nothing really happened since we left the hospital. That’s a lie, actually.

I found out both Simmons and Coulson snore.

Agent Skye signing off.

She’s about to press send.

“Don’t send”, comes Simmons’ voice in an out-of-character warning tone, “we only send mission reports when we’re back to safety, or we have a secure connection”, with that, she made it clear that she wasn’t Simmons anymore, “now brief me quickly on the mission”

“Long time no see, Agent Grey, I almost missed you too”, Skye smirks.

“How long since I’ve been out?”, her expressionless face a high contrast to Simmons’ ever transparent one.

“Two days. We’re Hydra hunting”, in theory, she wants to say, but she remembers Coulson lying to Simmons, so she mimics. Grey’s clearly not buying. She purses her lips obviously to make the fact explicit to Skye. Skye grins dumbly and attempts a subject change, “right now, I think we should get to a safe place and get Coulson healed”

Grey peeks through the curtains and says: “Kathmandu’s a rather large Hydra base. I’m surprised they didn’t find you in a heartbeat, they have eyes all over”

“They did, about five minutes after we arrived in the city”, Skye says, but Grey doesn’t respond. She’s clearly focused on something else.

“How long have you been here?”, Grey asks, frowning at something out of the window.

“About half a day”

“I meant this hotel”, the agent rolls her eyes.

“Oh, a little more than two hours”, Skye then follows Grey’s train of thought. Hydra was able to track them down in no time before, what were they waiting for?

“Then pack, we have to leave – now”, Grey rushes to nudge Coulson, “Director, we’re in danger”, he looks surprised at her, she just ignores, “there’s snipers on the nearest buildings, three or four of them. I’m sure they nearly emptied the streets of civilians. They’re about to throw a massive strike”

“Let’s abort the mission and get to safety”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a miracle I got this chapter done. I'm sorry for the delay, but I've been incredibly busy with other stuff, so I'm only able to sit down to write about thirty minutes a day, which totally sucks, and kind of smashes my productivity. I do hope this chapter was up to your expectations, despite my terrible deadlining.
> 
> Thanks for all the support, I really appreciate it :) 
> 
> Next chapter is called 'Agent Grey doesn't need an extraction plan', and we have Agent Grey, of course, but we also have someone else. Care to guess? :D Cheers people, hope I can bring you all up the Himalayas next time!


End file.
